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by masked



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21636607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masked/pseuds/masked
Summary: Dean goes back home.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78





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**Author's Note:**

> this was originally written as a submission sample to apply for [To Hell + Back anthology](https://tohellandbackanthology.tumblr.com/). applicants had to play around with the theme of profound bond between Dean and Cas somehow!

Dean grimaces at the sip of his burnt as fuck coffee while he walks out of the highway rest stop. Out of all coffees he’s had on the road, this has got to be the worst one yet. Still, something about the clear sky today makes sure to keep Dean’s mood light.

He’s whistling no particular tune with his shitty cup of coffee sitting on top of his car, and he’s about to get in and drive away when he notices, from the corner of his eyes, someone watching him.

Any other day, Dean wouldn’t have stopped whistling to look at him so bluntly. But something about this man—maybe it’s the long tan coat that Dean sees from the corner of his eyes, or the blue of the guy’s tie that Dean swears he’s seen somewhere before—keeps Dean from going into his car.

The man seems surprised to suddenly find himself the focus of Dean’s attention, but he doesn’t budge otherwise. He just… keeps on watching Dean. It should creep him out, but Dean finds himself staring right back.

Finally, Dean calls out a, “Hey,” and the man’s eyes widen at being directly addressed. Even with their distance apart, Dean can see all the blues of the sky trapped in the man’s eyes. The man tentatively takes his hands out of his coat pockets.

“Hello,” the man replies.

“You want something or what?”

The man opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and shakes his head. It’s odd—Dean’s almost disappointed that the answer is a no. What did he exactly think was going to happen?

He didn’t really think anything was going to _happen_. He just… didn’t expect a ‘no’, he supposes.

Dean huffs, turns away from the man’s direct gaze, and drives away from the highway stop.

* * *

The man is there at the next highway stop. He’d entered the convenience store after Dean and pretended to read something from a magazine rack, but when Dean had caught him glancing at him, the man had quickly averted his eyes back into the safety of the magazine.

Normally, Dean would be more careful. Normally. He doesn’t know exactly what compels him to go up to the man and confront him with a, “Hey.”

The man looks away from the magazine and says, “Hello.”

Dean doesn’t really know what to say after that. It’s not attraction, exactly—well, okay, the man _is_ a looker but he wouldn’t normally _act_ on it—but he guesses he just… wanted the man to know that he noticed him, as weird as that sounds. Maybe the weirdest part of this is that the man almost looks like he’s expecting something from Dean, like he’s—biding his time until Dean does something, or something.

Maybe Dean should get some shut-eyes instead of coffee. He’s been driving for too long and it’s getting to him.

Dean stands there like the useless idiot that he is, and the man doesn’t say anything else. Dean picks something off the shelf beside him to have something to do. It’s a bag of pork rinds. Gross. 

Dean puts the bag back down, feeling the man’s eyes on him all the while, and clears his throat. “So where’re you headed to?”

The man shrugs, and puts the magazine away. His focus is entirely on Dean now. “Home.”

“Huh.” And because Dean’s a fucking weirdo, he finds himself asking, “Have we met before?”

The man looks away from Dean for the first time since their conversation’s started, and huffs out a tired smile. “Yes,” he hushes out, looking back up. “At the gas station before.”

“No,” Dean replies, so quickly that he almost trips on his own tongue, and the man blinks in surprise. “No, I mean before that.”

The man opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He starts to form a word, but someone enters the shop with a jingle of a doorbell that rips both their attention away from each other. Dean doesn’t know why, but he’s suddenly restless and jittery like he hasn’t slept, and his empty fingers itch to reach out to the man in front of him.

But that’s stupid. And weird.

The man turns his attention back to Dean. “What about you?” he asks slowly. “Where are you going?” 

Dean starts to answer, and pauses.

Where was he driving to, again?

And before Dean can say anything else, the man is gone with only the sound of the doorbell left behind.

* * *

The next highway stop, Dean spots him faster.

“…talked to me,” the man’s voice says from around the corner of the gas station. “No, he didn’t recognize me. The spell’s not supposed to wear off until he—” He pauses, probably to listen to the person on the other end of the phone call. “I’m not trying to force anything,” he continues, his back suddenly tense and angry. “ _He_ talked to _me,_ Sa—”

“What spell?”

The man almost drops his phone, but his face is controlled calm when he hangs up and turns to face Dean.

“What spell?” Dean repeats with the unspoken threat underneath, and he corners the man into the wall behind him. The man only holds his ground and stares back. “Tell me.”

The man shakes his head and doesn’t offer anything else.

Dean has his gun with him, but he doesn’t pull it out. He’s not sure why. “You a witch?”

“No.”

Dean clenches his hands into fists in lieu of reaching out for the man. “A djinn?”

“No.”

The sun shines on the back of Dean’s neck, and it gently and persistently presses down at him as the man steadily looks back with unwavering blue eyes that won’t leave Dean alone, and Dean’s suddenly boiling with rage towards the man. He can’t put a finger to it but something important has been taken away from him, and this man has the answer but he refuses to give it.

“Then what are you?”

The man’s tensed shoulders drop, and his insistent eyes no longer reflect sunlight as they look away from Dean’s eyes. And for some reason, Dean hates that. 

The man gives a weary sigh. “There was... a mishap,” he says, like he’s treading on something fragile, something delicate, as if the act of speaking to Dean itself is akin to holding a hummingbird with broken wings. “But you’re making progress like we’d hoped. We’re almost there.”

“What the hell does that even mean, you cryptic bastard?”

At this, the man’s lips twitch upward, almost like he finds it endearing, and Dean’s frown deepens.

“If this is forced, it could cost you your life,” the man says instead, so calmly that Dean thinks he’s misheard him for a second. “I won’t risk that. Not even for you.”

And the way he says it, the indisputability of something heavy and knowing and significant layered underneath it, wipes all the other questions Dean’s had on the tip of his tongue. Dean studies this man in front of him with his familiar blue eyes and his dishevelled auburn hair and his ugly-ass trench coat, and asks, “Who are you?”

The man smiles, the same tired smile that Dean had seen at the last rest stop. “See you soon.”

“Wha—Hey!”

The man walks away to his car and Dean should stop him, he should go after him, but he just stands there and watches him from a distance like he’s always done.

Dean belatedly realizes that he’s trembling, not from talking to the man, but from seeing him walk away.

* * *

Dean drives by an old battered barn, and he turns to his passenger seat to snark about it only to catch himself at the last second. The passenger seat remains empty, but he can’t shake off the feeling that someone should be sitting there beside him, fond smiles and clasped hands and whispered confessions thrown carelessly into the wind.

Dean drives faster.

* * *

Dean turns from the main road into a smaller path. He doesn’t know how he knows to turn into this side path, but the trees that shape the open sky up above, the wildflowers that pepper the roadside, the green field that stretches out beside him as he drives towards the open horizon, all of it is a part of something that he’s heading towards. The last few days and the rest of his life slowly creep back to him as he drives down the road like he’s re-living a favourite childhood movie, the details so present at the back of his head like it’s always been there and yet he’s somehow completely forgotten about them until now.

The small paved path turns into a dirt road and Dean presses on the pedal harder as he remembers how the spell had cursed him to forget everything about home, and he tightens his grip around the wheel as he remembers how he had to find his way back home again or wander forever until his death, and he drives and drives and drives to reach the end of this long trip as he remembers what his ‘home’ exactly is.

What a stupid fucking spell.

Dean slows to a stop as tires meet gravel, and he finds himself at an abandoned factory with a set of stairs that lead to the metal door of the Bunker. Sam’s probably inside and ripping his precious hair out from worry, so Dean sends a quick text to let him know that he’s almost there, that he’s almost home. He gets out of the car just as a beat-up truck slowly pulls up behind him, and the last piece to undo the spell slots together to bring him home.

The man gets out of his truck, with his ugly as fuck trench coat that Dean’s always told him to change out of, and his dishevelled hair that Dean loves running his fingers through, and his endless blue eyes that Dean couldn’t possibly live without anymore, and as Dean grins and gives a simple wave, the man’s worried face clear up with his bright familiar grin.

“Hey, Cas.”

Cas’s grin widens. “Hello, Dean.”

And they’re home.


End file.
